IÓO  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

which  such  periods  of  enforced  idleness  involve.  But  the
utmost  care  must  be  taken  to  absolutely  sever  such  public
employment  and  its  product  from  the  general  current  of
outside  industry,  and  to  ensure  that  all  employment
afforded  by  public  bodies  in  these  times  of  distress  shall
be  regarded  as  a  temporary  expedient  justified  by  special
social  needs  and  not  as  a  part  of  an  organised  attempt
to  reconstruct  the  industrial  system.
§  26.  Danger  of  Resting  upon  Palliatives.
Two  chief  dangers  beset  the  consideration  of  the  specifics ­
  for  unemployment  here  described.  The  first  is,  lest
the  practical  reformer,  impressed  by  the  scale  and  importance ­
  of  one  or  more  of  these  schemes,  should  allow  his
mind  to  rest  contented  on  a  plane  of  palliatives,  ignoring
the  need  of  more  fundamental  economic  remedies.
Linked  closely  with  this  is  the  tendency  to  impute  validity
to  all  reforms  which  make  in  the  first  instance  for  an
apparent  increase  of  employment  without  considering
whether  they  are  attended  by  an  increase  of  the  aggregate
consumption.  The  attempt  to  cure  unemployment  by
making  new  employments  will  of  necessity  prove  futile,
unless  the  conditions  of  the  new  employments  are  such
as  to  throw  an  increased  power  of  consumption  into  the
hands  of  those  who  will  use  it  to  raise  the  general  level
of  consumption  in  the  community.  This  policy  alone  can
furnish  a  guarantee  for  the  steady  continuance  of  an  enlarged
volume  of  industry  and  of  employment.